Forbidden Love

Naughty teachers and the students they love

Sordid Details: Ross denied having sexual relations with a 14-year old student on her classroom desk. Prosecutors insisted differently, especially because she had exchanged over 4,000 text messages with the kid, including one picture message of her breasts — sent because the boy's friends didn't believe his boasts of sexually conquering the teacher, and he wanted proof.

These being middle-school boys, they figured they could turn the proof into a payday. In a stroke of adolescent brilliance and limited greed, they concocted a blackmail letter asking for a grand sum of $40. As young boys are prone to do, they gave up their exorbitant demands once confronted by Ross, who thought even $40 was too much to pay. Unfortunately, a hard copy of the letter floated around and eventually made its way into the hands of a parent, thus ending a budding 90210 episode at Riverside Elementary in Cleveland. (8)

Mitigating Factors: Early release (see below), and continued insistence that no hanky-panky took place. Unfortunately, no one believes her. (2)

Summary and Sentencing: Ross served one year of a two-year prison sentence before being released early. (6)

KIMBERLY SAUTO

Composite Score: 50

Number of Students:1

Age Differential:19 (34-15)

Sordid Details: The rumba, the tango, the Macarena — all dances that invoke sweaty bodies and sexual intimacy, with beats that move straight from the speakers to your brain to your loins. But tap dancing? Yes, the 34-year-old dance teacher managed to parlay the ole tap routine into a long-term relationship with a 15-year-old boy who inexplicably was not only in tap dance class, but straight. She plied him with booze, and as a trusted friend of the family, was allowed to take him on trips. The relationship was finally discovered when her husband — yes, she was married, with two kids — found a box of condoms in her gym bag. And a lot of text messages between the two. Then the police got involved. (10)

Mitigating Factors: She was in love with the boy. Really. (4)

Summary and Sentencing: Sauto's lawyers angled for probation, while the prosecutors demanded jail time. Her case was probably not helped when she admitted during the trial that she "continued to have sexual fantasies about the victim" and had in fact masturbated to those fantasies long after she had been caught. She was sentenced to a year in prison. (10)